February 09, 2009

Richard Hatch speaks out about 'Battlestar Galactica's' Tom Zarek

There's been a spirited debate in the comment area of last Friday's post on "Blood on the Scales," the most recent episode of "Battlestar Galactica." That piece contains an interview with Michael Angeli, who wrote the episode, and some analysis of the episode from me.

Readers have continued to weigh in with their own takes on the episode, which continued the tense events that began in "The Oath."

Also commenting on that post: Actor Richard Hatch, who plays Tom Zarek on the show.

I've been able to confirm that it is indeed Hatch who left the following spirited defense of the character in the comment area. Angeli also left a comment on the post as well.

Read on if you want to see Hatch's take on Zarek, which I've copied from the comment area and posted here, as well as some other comments on the character and on the depiction of power on "Battlestar." But be forewarned, it's best if you've seen "Blood on the Scales" before you read on.

One more interesting bit of news that surfaced over the weekend: Angeli said we will probably see extended cuts and deleted scenes for many of the Season 4.5 episodes when the season comes out on DVD.

Another random thing that Sci Fi just announced: The Apple App Store now has a Cylon Detector for sale.

OK, on to the comments.

By way of context, here's part of a comment from reader Harold S., who was disappointed in "Blood on the Scales" (and by the way, it's best to check out the full gamut of comments to get a sense of the debate about Zarek, Adama, Roslin and the uses and abuses of power as depicted on the show):

From Harold S.: As you've explored in various conversations with the
writers, the beauty of finding Earth is that this decision had a
logical outcome - which is that somewhere, sometime, that leadership
was going to have to be questioned for the first time since "Dirty
Hands" and on a larger level, really since "Kobol's Last Gleaming."

That's why "Oath" was so gripping; Adama and Roslin
finally faced the consequences of their actions, and as your interview
pointed out, there were no right or wrong answers - Zarek and Gaeta
were, in fact, just as right as Roslin/Adama/Lee/Starbuck.

Besides much of the logical discontinuity, dropped
plot lines, and characters taking actions that didn't make sense,
"Blood on the Scales" was so disappointing because this got pushed
entirely to the side save for the moments with Kelly switching sides
and Nacho telling Adama he'd always respected him.

Zarek ends up living out his last act as a
stereotypical powermongering dictator villain (probably why Hatch hated
the end so much), murdering the Quorum and desperately giving Gaeta
orders, when the beauty of his character all along was just how
ambiguous he'd been for four years.

Here's a response from me to various commenters who'd remarked on the fact that Adama and Roslin weren't particularly democratic leaders:

From Mo: I've said that I've always wished we heard more from
the Quorum, and it's been pretty clear over the years that Adama-Roslin
pretty much do what they like, and that democracy in the fleet is more
of an idea than anything.

Have they had too much power? Maybe. Then again, the
majority of humans left in the universe are alive to complain about
their fates, so it ain't all been bad.

Here's the thing: I get this position -- that these
particular people have been scrupulous with power, but they could be
followed by others who are not so scrupulous. They may take all the
executive and practical power, and they may be honest and honorable and
well-intentioned, but the inheritors of that power, whoever they might
be, may not be. Some take power and use it wisely and well, or try to.

Then there's Cain.

So, you know, I get what you're saying about the whole issue of "royalty" and power, etc.

Having said that, what this show does quite
beautifully is continually present the characters between an array of
bad options. And that's pretty frakking true to life, imho.

Absolutely Adama and Roslin should be held
accountable for getting the fleet in this fix and for their summary
decision to ally with the Cylons. No doubt. This revolution didn't have
to go down, and it didn't have to go down this way, and some of that
responsibility lies with them.

But let's say that Zarek and Gaeta succeeded. Then what?

Option A is Zarek and Gaeta taking over, and you
know that Gaeta in that scenario is soon headed for an airlock. Once
Zarek has power, Gaeta is a liability. "Nice knowing you, Felix, it's
been real." And soon we're presented with Most Supreme Dear Leader Tom
Zarek.

I think the fleet was more or less OK with Option B. They're the devil the fleet knows.

Zarek would not have been a great leader, imho, and
realistically, at that point, the two choices were the Zarek faction
and the Adama faction. Yes, Adama-Roslin have screwed up plenty. But
the other option -- to have Zarek and his goons in power -- I think the
majority of folks were not OK with that. Let's say I'm in the fleet,
I'm Jane Schmoe, I secretly sided with the anti-alliance faction. They
lose. I'm grumbly but OK with that. That's just my two centurions.

I'm sure people will come up with a zillion Option
Cs, other scenarios that could have been played out. But to all that I
would say, this is a work of serialized drama.

We have this set of characters that we''re
following. I'm sure the delegate from Saggitaron is/was perfectly swell
but I don't want a three episode arc about how he/she was swept into
the presidential office. Not at this late stage in the game.

Here's Richard Hatch's comment on Zarek:

First, having played Zarek for the past four years I
would like to say that never did I play this character as a villain nor
did I think he was one and I still feel that way. After paying the
price of 25 years in prison for standing up for human rights and seeing
both his family, friends and cohorts killed by a supressive government
on his home planet he had every right to distrust the powers that be on
Galactica that seemed to think that only they had the right to make
decisions for the people.

And since Zarek was blocked illegally by Roslin and
Adama at every turn including from winning a fair election he had to
resort to any leverage he could gain to assert some kind of voice in
what had become an almost dictatorial government run by Adama and Roslin, who looked with disdain upon the council of the 12 and did
pretty much what they wanted without consensus of the people.

And after four years Zarek had basically only two
suits and hardly any money and as the smart man he was from learning
many lessons the hard way why would he want power for the sake of
power. He experienced first hand what power could do on his home planet
and how it could corrupt, and the only reason he would want power
having been to hell and back was to ensure that the people had a voice
in their govenment.

Did everyone forgot what democracy is about or do we
just shut our eyes when the government no longer listens to the
democratically elected representatives of the people just because we
love the characters. And by the way I love both these actors and the
character they play too the fact is they broke as many laws as they
claim Zarek did.

The truth is from everything I've read and from all
the scripts I played it was clear to me that Zarek's actions were
always about making a positive difference which is what his whole life
was about. My god he paid with 25 years in prison for it and with his
life. And tell me, knowing what we know about the Cylons and their
programming how could anyone ever trust them again. Even the human
Cylons themselves have no idea of what they're capable of doing because
of their hidden programming.

Also, Zarek was far from perfect, but tell me how in
hell could he have accomplished anything in a honest and
straightforward way when he was blocked in every way possible and his
reputation tarnished by Adama so no one would trust him. Adama had all
the power and the military behind him so he had to resort to whoever
and whatever he could use to have any voice at all.

Does anyone forget that Zarek was in solitary
confinement on New Caprica because he didn't go along with Baltar's
agenda. Is that the M.O. of a power hungry terrorist.

Did anyone ever read Zarek's backstory. Doesn't seem
so. People only took what Adama said about him as God's truth but if
you really study his actions you would see that he never did anything
that wasn't for the reason of supporting his idealistic vision of a
true democracy where the government is accountable and this government
was definitely not accountable.

The government of Adama and Roslin as much as we
love these character broke every constitional rule or law to stay in
power and to assert their will, regardless of their positive
motivations they had destroyed a true democracy on the Galactica and
yet Zarek is looked upon as the power hungry bad guy because he was one
of the few to stand up and challenge them.

And why, because he believed that just because we
have a 9:11 type holocaust you don't shut your eyes and turn over your
power to the govenment because that's the surest way to lose your
rights and what we as a people have fought many wars to protect. In my
opinion to say that Zarek wanted power only for the sake of power is
absolutely wrong and doesn't make any rational sense if you truly study
this characters actions and words.

In truth Zarek, Adama and Roslin all wanted power
for the same reason, to make a positive difference but Zarek still
idealistically believed that the government should always be
accountable to the people represented in this show by the council of
the 12.

In closing it's so easy to just write off Zarek as
another power hungry terrorist but tell me where in this four year
story arc did he ever do anything that supported that belief. His
words, his feedback his words of wisdom, his actions were always in
support of his agenda to make the government accountable, and the
reason for that was because he had suffered as much as anyone under a
government that operated without acccountability and I hate to say it
this seems to be the direction the present govenment on Galactica is
heading. You're telling me that only Roslin or the Adama family
including Apollo has the right to lead and no one can challenge them.
That seemed to be the case here. Democracy is a fragile institution and
can easily be lost if we don't make our govenments accountable and for
me this amazing series BG has truly explored this theme in a powerfully
honest way.

I feel privileged to have been a part of this
wonderful series and I truly loved playing Tom Zarek. One of the most
flawed, complex and misundertood characters I've ever played.

Angeli also commented after Hatch did:

[To] Harold S.: I respect you criticisms and hope that
the remaining episodes will compensate for your disapointment with
"Blood on The Scales." But for the record, Mr. Hatch didn't "hate the
end of the show" -- at least that's what he told me and after spending
many hours with him on and off the set, I'm inclined to take Mr. Hatch,
a passionate and consummate professional, at his word. Once he
understood the intent of the script, he fully embraced the ending. It's
one of the reasons why Mr. Hatch's performance was so extraordinary (in
my opinion).

OK, this is Mo again (and this bit is new, it's not from the "Blood on the Scales" comment area).

My final take on Hatch's defense of Zarek? He makes many good points. But it doesn't address Zarek's cold-blooded
murder of Laird (poor Laird!) and it doesn't address the murder of the
Quorum.

I'm with Hatch up to a point -- he makes a pretty good case (he
should form a law firm with Romo, they'd make a killing, no pun
intended). But how can we accept Zarek as the man championing the will of the people if he is murdering their representatives? Even those who
(secretly or openly) sided with the coup might have gotten a bad feeling if Zarek and Co. had
won on the back of that kind of bloodshed.

In any case, I don't see Zarek as a simple bad guy. I see Zarek as being similar to Cain, one of the show's iconic characters. Both are ruthless for
what they see as good reasons, both full of complicated shades of good and
bad and both died believing they'd made the right choices. I disagreed with many of those choices, obviously, but it's impossible to write off either character as being a simple villain.

Comments

A fantastic piece, Mo--thanks. I agree with your final take completely. Hatch makes excellent points about Zarek, and I'm with him, up to a point. And that point IS the murder of the Quorum. The cold-blooded murder of the Quorum. He is correct that Adama and Roslin have made a mockery of democracy, but Zarek, with those actions, made a mockery of his revolt.

That is really, for me, the essence of the beauty of BSG: that every character has these shades of grey, and that no one is unadulteratedly good or bad.

I like Angeli's comment, and I'm glad that Hatch's spectacular performance in "Blood on the Scales" is recognized. I think that BSG should give Hatch's career new life, and I hope it does.

I'm glad to see so much debate over what I thought was an excellent couplwe of episodes. Here's my two cents, as a longtime sci fi fanboy and TV crit...

I always saw Zarek as analogous to Ian McKellen's Magneto from the X-Men movies -- a guy with an admirable goal but ruthless methods forged by horrific personal experience.

If Roslin and Adama forgot that freedom to choose is important in a Democracy, Zarek forgot that methods matter to history. And no matter what his intention, if he took power by slaughtering people --especially elected officials -- he could only maintain power with more brutality.

I felt this was consistent with his past actions -- he's always been a ruthless charmer with laudable goals. But I also think it made life easier for the show's writers, who ultimately could use his actions to swing viewer emotion behind Adama and Roslin when these characters' cases should have been more ambiguous.

So, was having Zarek resort to killing people a bit of an easy out? Probably. But it was also consistent with his history. And it's consistent with the whole message of the epsidoe to begin with -- that no one's hands are truly clean.

As far as Richard Hatch's perspective goes, I know two things as someobody who has interviewe him and other actors over the years. He doesn't seem like the kind of actor who would just swallow a storyline he thought was bogus. And actors often have to sympathize with the characters they play in ways that more objective observers -- and critics- - would not. So i'm not surprised he's defending tthe character's actions, even though responding to repressive illegal tactics with murder hardly seems defensible.

First, I want to repeat and amplify what I said in the comments to the original post.

Thank you, Mr Hatch for engaging with fandom like this. Just confirms my long-held opinion that you're not only a true gentleman and consummate professional, but (regardless of how much screentime you got) a worthy part of the best ensemble cast on television today. Period and full stop.

And while I disagree, as a viewer, with much of Hatch's read on Tom Zarek, it is totally valid for an actor who is trying to pitch a character beyond something out of Victorian melodrama or a B-movie.

Mo's comparison of Zarek to Helena Cain is right on the button -- and the fact they're not simple black hats, in fact are admirable people in many ways, just makes it all so much worse. Just as when we see "heroic" figures like like Laura Roslin do terrible things with the very best of good intentions, and terrifying consequences. Both the Old Man and 'Madame Airlock' have to live with the crushing reality that when they make decisions -- good, bad or indifferent -- people can die. There's no reset buttons, no do-overs, no higher authority to lay your burden off on, and far too often just no damn time to second guess yourself or run a focus group.

And I have to agree with Angeli that the end worked and was immensely powerful. I really think Zarek went to his death with no regrets; Adama had his number a few weeks back when he said TZ would lay down his life in heartbeat if it was as a martyr to a righteous cause, it was being exposed as "just another rotten politician with his hand in the till" he couldn't bear. (I found that little hit of vanity rather endearing, because I don't think TZ and BA are really that different on that score. Neither of them are going to betryal their values, and anyone who has a problem with that can go frak themselves.) Whatever else you say again Zarek, he's not naive or stupid about people -- he knew that his coup either succeeded, or it failed and there was no way Roslin and Adama would risk letting him live. Actions have consequences; and he rolled the hard six and it came up snake eyes.

I posted on the other item that that murder was dramatically expedient, but not in service to the larger plot challenging whether democracy had a place during wartime.

As I said, why not co-opt the Quorum? Imprison them until they turn? It isn't as if we ever heard any one of them be activists on New Caprica or during the RTF's run from the Cylons, so they weren't really a threat either to Adama or Zarek. In short, they were used as redshirts, something to make buy in to the urgency of the threat Zarek represented -- and yet undercut Zarek's real threat (steering the RTF away from the Adama regime and the Cylon alliance, to a future wandering in space on their own) as something a sane person could consider.

RDM and the crew had a chance to really dig into this question *while* maintaining a high-action and violence plot, but no. They diminished Zarek to someone even below Cain, taking away his power as a villain who was mostly right and the shadow of our heroes' own mistakes. Fie on them.

So, nobody on BSG ever fatally over-played their hand, put way too much confidence in their ability to charm and bluster their way out of a corner, before Tom Zarek? I think Lucy Lawless might beg to differ -- because D'Anna's hubris sure had a pretty ugly outcome. Ditto for Natalie -- who really should have expected the Ones, Fours and Fives to up for some payback after she took the centurions off their leash and staged a coup of her own.

cgeye:
As I said, why not co-opt the Quorum? Imprison them until they turn?

I reply:
And if they don't, just let them sit around to form the core of a civilian resistance? (I'm assuming these people are members of the Quorum in the first place because they've got influence and connections among the civilian population.) He's tried to charm and appeal to their fears, one more time. And it wasn't working. Jacob Cantrell rather pointedly told "Vice President Zarek" to leave the room. Despite being the most in your face opponent of any alliance with the Rebel Cylons, when Roslin addressed them in 'A Disquiet Follows My Soul'.

It's perfectly logical to kill potential threats, especially when your hold on power is already less than firm.

Mo here: I'm agreed. I think if Zarek's committed to seizing power, he's not going to let the Quorum stick around to undo everything he's done in his quest for power.

At the beginning of the series, I had assumed that Zarek had made the decision to try to change things from within the system for once. Perhaps he made this decision after spending 20-some years in prison, after seeing his own followers on the prison barge devolve into common criminals once they had hostages under their power, or once humanity had survived near extinction.

I also assumed that Zarek's going back to his more extremist past was a reaction to Earth turning out to be a lie. What's the point of working within the system when your leaders have let you down -- both by undermining democracy and ultimately not bringing the results that they promised, and when those results (finding Earth) were often their excuse for subverting democracy.

It would have been nice to see Zarek's transformation fleshed out a bit. Gaeta got that treatment in the webisodes, but it's not adequately explained how Zarek goes from encouraging revolution on the tyllium ship to killing the Quorum.

Mo here: Agreed, I think we could have seen more of Zarek's journey and how he arrived at the place where he could do the things that he did during The Oath and Blood on the Scales.

Personally I'd love it if the writers for the show did a series of novelizations. I'd buy those books!

I actually understand Zarek assassinating the Quorum, especially if, after 25 years, the Cylon Holocaust and New Caprica, he doesn't see any of them as being "real" democrats.

If the Quorum was in power during New Caprica, and as far as has been revealed they were, no doubt they did some colluding too with the Cylons and with Baltar's ineffectual and corrupt government. He simply wanted bad people gone and justified it to himself.

Think of the French Revolution, where presumably good people with the ideals of Fraternity, Liberty and Justice in their eyes murdered anyone from the old order because, again in their eyes, the old order was by definition opposed to it.

Or the good people of Nazi Germany who went along with a horrible evil because they thought the new guys were better than the old Weimar Republic.

I get Zarek, though I don't think what he did was right.

Mr. Hatch, if you are reading this, thanks for doing such a wonderful job, with such an important role on such a cool show.

They said that only Nixon could go to China. I won't insult you by calling you Nixon, but I will complement you by saying only an original BSG cast-member, a vocal critic, could appear on the re-imagined BSG and become one of the best, if controversial, written and acted characters on it.

Mo wrote:
Agreed, I think we could have seen more of Zarek's journey and how he arrived at the place where he could do the things that he did during The Oath and Blood on the Scales.

I reply:
Sure, but couldn't you say that about a dozen characters -- why did Hot Dog (ironically enough the only survivor of Kara's first nuggets) wash out of flight school before the attack? Did Kat know the real Louanne Katraine, or did she just steal the identity of a total stranger? Laird, Duck and Nora, Maya -- so many others I want to know more about.

Makes a nice change from shows where the substance is spread so thinly it's invisible.

Mo here: Gotta disagree with you about Kat. The Passage gave me way, way, way (did I mention WAY) more information about her than I ever wanted or will want.

I like the points Hatch makes and agree with many of them (Adama and Roslin have been cavalier at best about their adherence to democratic principles), but I agree with Mo: He neglects Zarek's nonchalant willingness to kill in order to achieve power.

Is that something you can turn off after gaining the throne, as it were? That's one of the questions BSG has pursued all along, brilliantly, and Zarek's bloodlust, well-intentioned as it may be, makes him more like the enemy he hates than he (or Hatch, apparently) is able to admit.

In short, he kills like a Cylon, which makes his answer to Felix's question near the end of "The Oath" -- "I'm one of them" -- beautifully double-sided. Nice work, Mr. Angeli.

That said, he was carrying out his rebellion effectively, and may well have succeeded if it weren't for Felix's basic decency and blinkered nostalgia. Thus Gaeta's death is tragic while Zarek's is not. Either way, they're both warped by loss and perhaps forgivable, and in that regard share something with Adama, Roslin, and the whole sorry frakin' fleet.

Second, thank you to Mr. Hatch for joining this debate, for your portrayal of Zarek, and your insight into how you played him. I really hope we get to see you back on the small screen in other roles; you've more than proven you still have your chops.

Third, thank you to Mr. Angeli for your kind response; I apologize if I misstated Mr. Hatch's position. I'd misread your comment of 'he struggled with the idea of being perceived as a villain.' Combine that with Mr. Hatch's previous passionate defenses of Zarek's motivations (along with RDM's comments during the podcast of "Bastille Day") which he echoes here, and I took that as that he might not have been thrilled with the end of the character. I wouldn't have been if I were him, but Mr. Hatch is a professional and I am not.

Zarek's attempt at a coup and his death made perfect sense, and the coldblooded (and coldhearted) logic he presented during it also made sense too. It's just that it wouldn't have taken that much to frame a few scenes slightly differently to give a totally opposite impression of him on the way out. There were some other problems with plot that I had, but the reason I was so frustrated with Zarek especially is that it really wouldn't have taken much to send him out consistent with the ambiguous guy we'd seen all along:

- Outright expressing to Gaeta that the coup was going to be over in hours one way or the other, and if they didn't take firm, irreversible steps to cement it during that time, well, then the cement would just end up being poured over them. Sets up his actions a lot more firmly.

- Killing off the Quorum was fine, the problem was with the Marines executing that order. Were they Marines or his people (which wasn't made clear with the 'civilians arming themselves' bit in "Oath") in Marine uniforms? The latter, sure, I could see that. The former, though, Colonial Marines executing the Quorum on a civvie's orders? No way. On Cain's, absolutely, Gaeta's maybe, but Zarek's or Roslin's, no. (See: "Escape Velocity" - they're enforcing the Quorum's orders not to let Baltar back in since they've been commanded to by their superiors, but Lee wisely takes a Marine officer with him to get them to actually give the order to "stand down.")

- The scenes towards end where he's trying to give orders to Galactica's crew. Half the fun of Zarek was him as an utterly sneaky behind the scenes master manipulator, and even in desperation I couldn't ever have seen him get in a situation where he'd have set up the "military leader and President all in one" bit until he was ready for it (ala Option B). Heck, just let Gaeta turn the 1MC over to Zarek before Roslin started her Churchill moment - but let Zarek nominally defer to him until they're back in "Commander" Gaeta's quarters or talking quietly around the map table (ala Lee to Adama, "We have to get out of here. RIGHT NOW." I suspect that would have also made Gaeta seem more consistent, including the slow dawning on him that he might have found his way out of an airlock had Option B succeeded.

I also think that Mo's comments regarding what the fleet thought about Option A and B would have been useful to work in. The Adama seachange took place pretty quickly.

Perhaps the deleted scenes will help a lot; I'd really hope RDM pushes for a 90 minute DVD episode if you felt they were critical to understanding this. It may be this episode is the opposite of Pegasus, which worked far better as a 60 minute episode than the extended version, even when the details were omitted.

For what it's worth, I do think the Kelly scenes will rank among the top of the authentic military moments of the show. Officers do not easily betray their commander they still respect - even if that commander has sent them to the brig.

Thanks for spending the time talking to the fanbase and Mo even though the series is over, and thanks again to Mo for doing such a great job covering the show.

Mo here: Thanks for your thoughts, Harold. I love the debates that this show begins. I'll miss them when they're gone.

I have to say, I get a lot of folks commenting here on the blog, and the discussions I've often enjoyed the most are the ones that Battlestar prompts. People get really passionate about their positions but they, for the most part, express themselves really well and refrain from namecalling and that sort of thing.

So, really, thanks, Harold for being a vital part of the discussion. We may not always agree but I look forward to what you have to say.

Richard Hatch's impassioned defense of Zarek really did make me reconsider how easily I dismissed him as a villain, even considering the murder of the Quorum. I think it really boils down to one's ability to truly see the circumstances from the characters' point of view.

If Adama has a fatal flaw, it's probably that he is too merciful, too willing to give people (including cylons) a chance if their actions merit that chance. Of course this is what also makes him a magnificent, heroic character. It cuts both ways, and whether you're a hero or a villain can largely depend on whether or not the people you trust let you down. Trusting Athena and Tigh may seem a safe bet, and I steadfastly believe Adama is right to do so, but remember Boomer lest you forget the risks.

I think I can understand why Zarek and Gaeta choose to trust no Cylons as the safest and perhaps most rational course, even with the bloody and awful aspects of the coup that Zarek understood to be necessary. From Zarek's point of view, I can see integrity in his actions.

But ultimately I do side with Adama and it's because of his fatal flaw and greatest strength -- exemplified in his willingness to roll the hard six and trust his loyal friend Tigh whatever the costs, whatever his own inner turmoil over Tigh's cylon nature, whatever the risks to the fleet. It's damned noble -- maybe not rational, but it's why I love the character. And why I can't love Zarek and Gaeta.

I like [Eric Deggans'] analogy of Zarek as Magneto, "...a guy with an admirable goal but ruthless methods forged by horrific personal experience." That also describes Saul Tigh. Are we holding him to a different standard?

This has been a fascinating discussion, but I'd like to know something different- what's Hatch up to next? He gave a hell of a performance on the show and woke up a lot of people, including myself, who didn't think of his as an actor. However you read his explanations of Zarek's actions, it's obviously he committed fully to the character. I hope casting directors were paying attention.

In fact I totally agree with every single line Richard Hatch has put in his comment (and I am most amazed he has taken his precious time for pointing all these really important things out to us fans!!), I really do, but that last bit of adding coming from Mo and questioning the motifs of the murdering of the quorum and Laird is actually nailing my current feelings.

I LOVE Tom Zarak as character, cause he was always ambigous and not to be predicted. He had history that made him the man he is with the actions he choose and I am really satisfied with the writing for his character generally speaking. The complexity of his character made him the most fun to watch from all recurring characters and I never considered him being the villain.

It is just that I really think the murder of the WHOLE quorum was out of character. He doesn't even seem to care in that particular situation and I personally believe that Zarek is not that cold blooded. I really think that he would have considered that more deeply and I hope when more deleted scenes can be watched on the DVDs that we might get a glimps of his emotional state in this moment or even a moral questioning of his decision, cause to me, it felt a bit too harsh. He was ready to do his best to take over and then keep the power, and he apparently agreed to the idea of killing ppl along the way, but that was MASSIVE, even for him.

On a lighter note, I'd like to applaud Mr Hatch for his continously perfect performance on the show whereby his last appearance was a true knock out!! He was BRILLIANT and I absolutely adore his work, not just in those eppies.

To me, Zarak, along with Baltar, will be always my favorite "non-villians", so to speak, ever in the history of TV shows. They remind me a whole lot of (my BELOVED!!) Garak of DS9 who was as much as a torn and multilayered character as those two, but on BSG Zarak and Baltar turned out even stronger and darker and more twisted. There was never just Black and White, there were just all those gray scales in their character and that what made it special. In any way... my favorite characters!

The main reason that I can't buy Zarek as a sincere freedom fighter is that when given the chance, he doesn't step forward to lead. He exposes all these great ideas and beliefs, but when he's close to being able to make a difference, Zarek pushes Baltar, Lee, Gaeta out front to take the brunt of whatever is going to happen.

I don't think that Zarek even understands this as it is happening, but it does happen.

I think the fact that there can be such spirited debates among comments and posters and forums just goes to show how great BSG is. I tend to think that the wide array of opinions kind of proves that the characters and situations weren't actually black and white: vilified or blatantly worshipped. The fact that we CAN argue our points- and have the evidence to back them up- is a testament to how wonderfully complex and layered the show is. And to top it all off, it's FUN!
And Richard Hatch, you really deserve all the congratulations and respect in the world for bringing that humanity and depth to a tragic character.
God, I love this show. Thanks for the articles, Mo!

Mo wrote:
Gotta disagree with you about Kat. The Passage gave me way, way, way (did I mention WAY) more information about her than I ever wanted or will want.

I reply:
Sure, I could have done without skeezy boyfriend, but I'm always intrigued by that delightful myth of America :- you can cross the sea and make yourself over, shake off the past -- the old world where you were nothing and nobody -- like an old overcoat. If you're brave, or lucky, or willing to do things you'd never have even dreamed of before.

Horrible as it sounds, the end of the world gave Kat a chance to be something truly magnificent -- not only more than she was, but perhaps something more noble than she ever imagined was possible. And ironically enough, she did that by pretending to be someone else.

Let me echo the thanks to Mo for 1) this fine column and its thoughtful dissection of our collective obsession, and 2) the opportunity engage people with the show such as...well, Richard Hatch.

[And if Mr. Hatch is still lurking...Richard, I just want you to know - as a wee lad who watched the original show in rapt attention every week, bought the toy vipers - how my heart broke a little when your proof of concept dead-ended, and how I resolutely boycotted what I saw as RDM's deformation...until one night when I couldn't quite make myself switch off Sci-Fi (the episode was "Scattered")...and I was hooked. I'm glad we both came back on board eventually.]

So we're back to Zarek - what he was as a character. Hatch's feelings about this man he was immersed in for the last four years illustrate the depth of the writing on this show. What does great art do? It holds a mirror up to nature. And the truth is, human nature is never really all of one thing, and neither are any of Galactica's characters. No one is perfect - certainly not Adama or Roslin, whose withdrawal made this mutiny (barratry?) possible in the first place. Zarek, a darker, more conflicted character, likewise has had his grace moments - helping save Roslin on New Caprica, giving power back up when he could have held on. And so on.

And he *did* have a point about the Cylon alliance, and how Adama/Roslin had more or less rammed it down the fleet's throats. The Quorum was increasingly just a committee to be cajoled, not a deliberative body. In fighting that development, however, his better angels steadily lost out, as his older ruthlessness reasserted itself. By the time we see him execute the Quorum, we realize he's without moral restraints, and that many, many more will have to die before he completes his consolidation of power. And many will follow him down that road, because that's the dark place many of the colonials have reached now, in the wake of the shattered hopes of Earth, and many unthinkable things are now possible. I found that bloody-mindedness - of the Quorum assassins, of Narcho - very believable. That's the journey they're on now.

Just causes too often travel down that road, which is one more reason I find it easy to believe the writers are not just good writers, but well read ones. Robespierre started out as "Robbespierre the Incorruptible," the man who was criticizing the Estates General for being fundamentally undemocratic a year before Louis XVI even called it, a passionate advocate for human rights in the face of the ancien regime...and by 1792, he was signing Louis' death sentence, and bathing the streets of Paris in the blood of the Terror, enabling the pent-up bloodlust of a thousand Madame Defarges. Even good men can end up in some dark places, given a hard enough push.

What a show. Like Mr. Hatch, I'm very sorry it's going to end so soon.

First off, thanks Mo for another fantastic, in-depth discussion of Battlestar. Also, thanks to Michael Angeli and Richard Hatch for joining in this discussion. I think the discussion on these boards shows the depth of the show and fans' devotion to it.
I especially enjoyed Hatch's portrayal of Zarek. It would be far easier to dismiss him as a simple villain if there weren't some noble things he did along the way. I think Zarek was very passionate about his beliefs, but I disagree with a lot of the actions he took. The murder of the quorum and the authorization of the post-occupation tribunal are the two biggest things that stand out to me. If Zarek truly believed in the democratic process, why wouldn't he allow the quorum to live? Why allow a war tribunal to summarily execute alleged collaborators, even those who had to make hard decisions like him? Remember, Jammer tried to protect Cally, and he got airlocked for his trouble. Gaeta, who passed information to the resistance, very nearly got airlocked as well.
That said, I think it's a testament to the strong overall writing, directing and acting on Galactica that there is such impassioned discussion and disagreement. Kudos to all involved in the making of the show, and thanks to Mr. Hatch and Mr. Angeli for the added insight.

I believe Richard Zarek was more in love with the idea of true democracy than he was with actually administrating such a great notion upon the fleet.
Holding on to such an ideal may have been his way of being sane in an insane world, that after all of his backroom dealings, run-ins with the law, murders, black marketeering it would lead to something better. It has to. Otherwise Tom Zarek is nothing but a petty criminal and he's got too much pride to admit that.
A man must have a code. Zarek has a savior complex. He views himself as a superhero. Superheroes don't do bad things. Thus any action that he commits is the right action and the people on the other end of the barrel are obviously the supervillains. All suspects are guilty, otherwise they would not be suspects, or did anyone forget the way he ran his war crimes tribunal? He's a razor walking on the edge of a sword.
Therefore, the assassination attempts, the murder of the quorum and of adam aren't evil deeds to a man like Tom Zarek. He's almost military like in his decision to shoot the quorum, they're empty baggage to him and its time to discard them. Nothing personal, its all part of the coup playbook. He's not richard nixon, he's Robert McNamara in the Fog of War talking about proportionality as a guideline of war, bombing civilians so they don't pose problems for a future invasion of japan and such. "But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
It's not evil, it's sound military thinking, as cold as that may sound. It's nuking a population so they can no longer support the enemy's war effort and so on.
That's why Zarek has no regrets. To him, it was all legitimate. Adama didn't have the balls to execute Roslin on Colonial One in the first season but that's what he needed to do. Once he was in control, Zarek and Felix in a weird way pinned their hopes and dreams on the conscience of the other. Both hoped that each would do what must be done. Which is where they failed.
Zarek decides to play president. EPIC FAIL. Zarek shoots the quorum.
Gaeta tries to play Commander and order a tribunal. EPIC FAIL. Zarek steps back and for some stupid reason, keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop instead of summarily executing the entire command staff and ordering the fleet to make an immediate jump to pre-agreed coordinates (using whatever excuse).
That's why he lost. Even at the end he kept telling Gaeta to tell his crew to do this and that. He forgot that he's the Commander in Chief. His savior complex played him like a chump. He subconsciously saw himself as a savior, an icon and he let that get the better of him. Superman doesn't sit in the white house, he just protects truth justice and the american way. So he balked when he got the keys to the kingdom.
Unlike the Joker (king of the schemers), Tom Zarek truly was a dog chasing cars. The joker makes sure he's got the pink slip in his pocket before he even sees the license plate.
He got a martyr's death, which is what he wanted, but I think he had always wanted that. He just wanted to be back railing against something somewhere because things made sense for him that way.
Anyway, that's my two bits about who Tom Zarek was.

When Zarek was contemplating the murder of Adama on Kobol, he already had the knowledge that Adama had carried out a coup d'etat against Laura Roslin. His actions when he sought to become vice-president during the colonial day episode are murkier but rest upon his fore-knowledge of his friend Vallance's plans which is unknowable - did he know that Vallance was attempting to assassinate President Roslin or did he only become aware of what Vallance intended when Apollo informed him of his arrest?

If conspiracy to murder places him beyond the pale, what does that tell us about Admiral Adama who conspired to assassinate Helena Cain? Sure Adama had justifications for his actions but then so did Zarek.

I disagree that Zarek was seeking to become a martyr - his actions during the coup were aimed at ensuring its success. If the marines hadn't fired upon Adama when they stormed the CIC then there would have been a staredown which Adama would have won and the coup collapsed.

The murder of both Laird and the Quorum were indeed crimes but Zarek could have argued that his drastic actions were necessary. Laird's incapacitation was necessary to prevent the coup's premature discovery and it is only through ill-chance that Laird was killed.
If the Quorum was merely imprisoned then it would have been a symbol of defiance that would have weakened the coup leading to its collapse.

But what about tolerance and democracy, the very principles Zarek claims he was fighting for? Wasn't that undermined by the slaughter of the Quorum? Zarek would agree that it was which is precisely the reason why he tried to talk to them first. But having decided that the coup's success was necessary to the survival of humanity, he felt he had no choice once they rejected him.

Shouldn't have Zarek just tried to get along? I don't think this was an option. Continued political division in the last remnants of humanity would have weakened it to the point of extinction, which would have been a worse fate than either side's complete victory.

If Zarek simply remained the leader of the opposition, then Adama and Roslin would have felt compelled to seek his untimely death sooner or later. Consider what Adama does when faced with union trouble - he threatens to shoot them. When Zarek became acting president, Adama ignored the constitution. And that is only when Earth was still a plausible dream! Now that Earth is a sick joke and everybody's backs are truly against the wall for survival (except for Roslin), does anybody seriously think Adama would continue to play comparatively nice? Tom Zarek certainly wouldn't have.

First, I want to tell Mo that I really appreciate this blog's excellent coverage of BSG. It is really first rate.

Second, I hope that Richard Hatch reads my comment, because I would just like to acknowledge his 30-year commitment to BSG. Without him, it is very likely that there would have been no revival of the show at all, let alone the current show that we all love.

Third, with respect to Blood on the Scales: I don't think there is anything inconsistent with Zarek's character and his decision to murder Laird and execute the Quorum. He may be an idealist and he may not see himself as a villain, but he is very practical and has been since Bastille Day and in every episode since. He understands that a coup d'etat succeeds or fails in its initial stages. In the initial stages, before power is consolidated, the coup can fall apart if significant centers of resistance are allowed to establish themselves. To succeed, this must be prevented this by any means necessary.

If Zarek had left the Quorum alive and defiant, it would have constituted a power center out of his control, from which an organized resistance could develop. This is essentially exactly what happened in the old USSR in 1991, when coup plotters tried and failed to take out Yeltsin and the Russian provincial legislature. It was a fatal error, and the coupsters all paid for it with their lives. Zarek is no fool and he did what made perfectly logical sense, even if it was horrifying and brutal. Whatever other criticism there may be of Blood on the Scales, I don't think the ones directed at the Quorum execution are valid.

What I love about great tv is that it not only makes you think, but brings everyone to the table to discuss the episode. Whether you think the writing is flawed or brilliant (and I think the latter), what we are really discussing is our own internal values and beliefs and how we think we would react in the same situation.

Most of us would never think to take another life, yet Zarek believed taking out the Quorum was the quickest way to get the coup over with. Gaeta thought keeping some sense of decorum - i.e. a trial for Adama would keep people loyal to his cause.

Adama and Madame President have embraced the Cylons as a means to an end - to get to a new home, no matter what. So they are essentially sleeping with the enemy when Gaeta and Zarek prefer not to.

But what other choices are there? You are in a post war situation in frakkin space - what would you do?

And therein lies the beautiful debate going on here. We all believe we would make the "right" choice - which is not a win-win for anybody, but a clearly frakked if you do and frakked if you don't endgame.

Just like no one is 100% happy with who gets elected or who is in power, it seems to all come down to who is the lesser of two evils?

Right now it appears to be Adama and Rosalin are it - until Ellen shows up this week. And she does not look like a happy camper.

Looking forward to more great reviews and interviews from Mo and more great debates from BSG Watchers.

I certainly don't view Tom Zarek as a "power hungry dictator," and I think Rich rightly points out that Tom's actions throughout the series were shaped by events that were not necessarily shown onscreen.

Tom ended up the same way a lot of characters on BSG ended up, someone who paid the price for trying to do what they THOUGHT was the right thing. Look at Crashdown on Kobol (Baltar and Tyrol there as well), Adama and Roslin during the presidential election, Ellen Tigh on New Caprica (current revelations notwithstanding), and above all Helena Cain. And now Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta. I don't think any of these characters are evil or even "misunderstood." All of them tried to do right, but the terrible circumstances they lived in twisted their ideas of right and wrong into something less clear-cut than we might hope, Tom Zarek especially.

The Magneto comparison was particularly apt, I thought. Here's another: Tom reminds me a bit of Scorpius, inasmuch as he is someone trying to do something that is essentially "right" but choosing to do very, very bad things to accomplish it.

TZ was always the best character and the writers did a terrible job with his character in the end. I don't recall anything in his history that would indicate he was a dirty politician and I definitely don't see him killing the quarom without at least agonizing over the decision.

Almost everything Roslin/Adama do is something I imagine from GW and friends. She's a drug addled lunatic who's sleeping with the head of the military and governed from one of history's more far-fetched bibles.

And finally, that "I'm coming for you" scream was embarrassing. Al Swearengen/Tony Soprano, she ain't.

I'm not sure I totally buy Hatch's argument, especially the way he glosses over all the people Zarek killed. But he's a terrific actor, and I'm glad he got over his initial reservations about the new BG so he could show us.

What a fascinating conversation about a truly excellent show. One of the things I love about BSG is there are never any clear cut answers or clear cut good guys and bad guys. As Ms. Ryan said, many times Roslin and Adama had to choose between one bad option and another bad one.

Zarek ultimately crossed a line when he killed the Quorum, though I agree with Mr. Deggans that it was a device by the writers to swing viewers back into the Roslin and Adama camp.

Just imagine how much more heated this discussion would be if Zarek hadn't done that and Adama had he and Gaeta executed anyway.

And I add my thanks to Mr. Hatch for giving us his very valuable take on what was a crucial character on the show.

I agree with Richard Hatch as well. I never viewed Zarek as a villain. I had always thought of him as an idealist with the motto "I won't betray my beliefs, " much like Adama. I think Zarek felt he was doing the right thing for the people of the fleet. His thinking was flawed, of course, as is the thinking of the current fleet leadership, but that is what makes BSG such wonderful food for thought!

I also agree that the charming smile Zarek gave Gaeta just before he was executed was an excellent and memorable ending for such a complex character. I wish the show would have explored the Zarek character more.

I was thinking about this last night and I was struck by how similar each side was to the original political parties of our founding fathers.

I would side Adama and Roslin with John Adams, who espoused a strong government and placement of power in the hands of the enlightened few, the Federalists. Sure the Federalists didn't exactly want a dictatorship but they also feared mob rule.

Zarek represents Thomas Jefferson. He wanted to rule by the will of the people. Jeffersonian democrats or Democratic-Republicans sought to curb federal power and place more control in the hands of the people.

Irregardless of how each side shirked the rules and committed at times despicable acts to achieve their ends, I think they did want the best for their citizens.

I think Richard Hatch is mostly correct: the producers have made the holocuast too remote and the cylons too human, ignoring the fact that they have burried programming. It's as-if a bunch of Auschwitz survivors were told that, democracy be damned, they were going to welcome the very same stormtroopers who had murdered their kids. What was missing in this episode was Adama's loyal opposition: those crew members who would not mutiny but would resign rather than serve under a dictator. My guess is that the producers are not going to return to the 2/3 of the ships who were "with" the coup and wanted to jump away from the cylons. Their democratic choice will continue to be silently suppressed.

This was really interesting and a testament to the BSG folks, especially Richard Hatch, who opened himself up on a blog about a performance which, you could tell, was still raw in his mind. I remember being initially disappointed with his appearence in the jailbreak episode, not b/c I was sorry to see the old Apollo back (who was always a favorite of mine- yes, im that old) but it looked like his character was going to be a bad guy from the get go, no matter what his background was. Instead, Richard and BSG writers (who have NEVER let me down- compare/contrast that to writers on heroes, lost, etc) turn him into something in between - I think it was his menace that made people think "bad guy". And when I say menace, I mean his capacity to be a dangerous person, because he was smart and effective and on occasion, ruthless when he needed to be. He was an ends justify the means character, I thought, but as Richard points out, ultimately, democracy was his goal. You have to wonder how many of the early patriots in our nation were similar to Zarek's character- sometimes you need those people to move things forward.

That being said, I think I agreed with many of you about the final episode with Zarek- I expected him to kill the Quorum but I was disappointed that he gave the order because I believe that choice did ultimately push him over the edge, into unforgiveable territory (though the Quorom, like many legislative bodies, was incredibly annoying at times). Maybe that was the point- he was committed and had to see it through, for good or for bad. I will say at the end, when he's facing the firing squad, one of my thoughts was "what a waste". If Zarek had been in a more stable situation (for example if earth wasnt a ruined mess) then he would have clearly been a person the Fleet would need to help them break out of the governmental direction taken by Roselyn and Adama.

Anyway, kudos to Richard, who I never expected to be that good doing that character. While I didnt always sympathize or agree with Zarek, he always made me think.

I see Zarek as nothing more than a self-serving pragmatist. Where's the idealism Richard Hatch talks about? Does an idealist get himself sent to prison in the first place by blowing up a building containing innocent civilians as well as the government personnel he targeted? Then we find one of Zarek's men attempting an assassination on Colonial Day. Next we find Zarek egging on another friend in the attempted assassination of both the Adamas on Kobol. He backs settlement of New Caprica, which he admits is a terrible idea for the people, just to get Baltar elected president so he can get his foot in the door as VP. Then he smarmily agrees to become Gaeta's partner in the coup, personally kills an innocent engineer doing his job, then has the Quorum killed when they refuse to acknowledge him as having the right to be president. He is so pro-democracy that he murders the democratically elected Quorum??? At every turn, Zarek is behind terrible deeds, yet always ensures himself plausible deniability. I'm sorry, this is the history of a pragmatic coward, not an idealistic hero.

agree - this last episode was weak from Zarek's writing pov. killing the quorum was understandable, but it didnt seem like they built it up enough or logically or the follow through of his losing power. he definitely didnt deserve the whole scene by Adama trying to blackmail him into stopping the coup few episodes back...it just wasnt necessary, Zarek never seemed like the type to take a bribe, maybe give one (see jammersreviews.com for good analysis of this episode)

disagree- I think Zarek was capable of going to through these extremes. in season 1 he took over the ship, he was responsible for bombings in his past, and in the last season he had created the secret tribunal executing collaborators (and at that time possibley Gaeta!).

First of all, Mo, I gotta say, I'm impressed by how you've basically become the most powerful "Battlestar" blogger on the Web. Your reviews and interviews have become required reading on the Battlestar wiki.

So far as Tom Zarek goes, I think Hatch is quite right. Zarek wasn't a terrorist, not really; he was an insurgent. And there is a very fine line. We like to think nowadays that terrorists are just people who kill innocents, but that simply isn't true; terrorists' main goal is to provoke terror (hence the name, duh). But Zarek wasn't trying to instill terror in anyone except those he felt were Cylon collaborators.

Think back to the episode "Collaborators." Zarek showed he had no mercy for Crashdown or anyone else -- and for a reason: the Cylons were and are the enemy. His biggest flaw, then, was an unwillingness to open his mind, rather than some sort of lust for violence or power. Obviously, there were and are mitigating circumstances to explain, and indeed support, the Roslin-Adama alliance; but for one who is clinging to the notion of "The Enemy," as Zarek did, their alliance must have seemed more like a grand duchy than a political alliance. And the fact that Adama appointed Lee as commander of the Pegasus probably just reinforced this notion in Zarek's mind; even though Lee was absolutely worthy and qualified, it is inescapable that Lee is, first and foremost, an Adama.

I do have to disagree with you that Zarek is much like Cain. I don't think so. Zarek was harsh, but he was also realistic. He knew, once the rebellion started, that there was no going back; therefore, he had to have the Quorum killed. He explains it quite well when talking to Gaeta, saying that yes, this is a coup d'etat, and they are bloody and they are violent.

For this reason, I have a lot more sympathy for Zarek than I do for Gaeta; Felix was an idealist, sure, but he was also a self-deluding narcissist. This was first showcased as he readied to leave New Caprica and hunted down Baltar, then whined about how he had believed in Gaius. Please. Baltar was always a skeezy politician, and a skeezy person to boot; Gaeta was just being self-righteous.

And we saw that time and time again with Felix -- when he was put on trial by the Circle; when he attacked Gaius; and most recently, when he tried to pretend he was "better" than the Sharon copy that screwed him over. So too was Gaeta willfully ignorant as to how he and Zarek would come to power. Coups are violent, Zarek told him, and there will always be bloodshed.

Now, obviously, as a fan of the show, I have always rooted and will continue to root for William Adama in whatever he does. But I have to say, as a literature Master's student, how impressive it is that these kinds of character studies can be done on television characters. For that alone, "Battlestar" may indeed go down as the greatest television program of all time, imho.

Thanks for bringing up the Scorpius (Farscape) analogy. Scorpy like Magneto and Zarek are very flawed and complex characters twisted by the harsh realities they live in and driven to do what they believe is right to save humanity. Interesting parallel lives to say the least.

I don't care how "idealistic" a person is. The moment you blow up a building and kill innocent people (which is what got Zarek into prison in the first place) you are a terrorist and your "ideals" don't mean squat. All this garbage about "oppression" and "rights of the people" don't mean squat after that.

Give me a break. . . .

If you want me to show pity then the writers should have modeled Tom Zarek after Nelson Mandela and not after Timothy McVeigh.

Roslin as a leader has a lot in common with Richard Nixon: An unwinnable war, political intrigues, powerful rivals and the necessity to make peace with a hated enemy before the hate itself destroys both sides.

Harith - I don't think the writers are going to let the murder of Cally go totally unresolved, especially given the revelation last night of an additional (albeit unconscious) motivation for that killing.

I think Mr. Hatch does an admiral job of defending Zarek, as I believe that is how Zarek sees things. I do think Zarek believed in the things he professed, yet at the same time there was an overwhelming ego driving him. It was not just that he wanted to achieve these goals, it was that he believed HE was he only one who could do so. That is what he used to justify his lust for power. All his work, in the end, seemed just as much for his own aggrandizement as for those he was working for. Honestly, I wouldn't expect him to see it. Zarek's own worldview prevents him from seeing himself in that light. And yet, if his actions are allowed to speak, that is exactly who he is.

I don't have much to add. I was a fan of the original, but I love what Richard Hatch brough to THIS BSG series, and the way he still engages the fan base just like he did in trying to get his own vision of BSG into production. Richard Hatch IS Battlestar Galactica, as his novels, dedication to the show, and rededication to RDMs vision of how the show played out.

We as a fanbase owe much to Mr. Hatch, and his willingness to help BSG stay alive. Tom Zarek is like his fight in some key ways. He was willing to struggle for his beliefs but in the end understood that he was a part of putting those beliefs into practice.

I love the characters on this show because there really are no black hats, they all wear shades of grey. Even Gaius, Helena and Zarek - all of whom stand in contrast to each other with their beliefs and in similiarity with their desire to survive are not clear and have elements that we can all relate to.

This is humanity... plain and simple... flesh or cylon.

Thank you Mr. Hatch, for adding your own humanity to this show and being a driving force in the BSG universe. Like a great symphony, we are crescendoing up to the spectacular finale, and the death of Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta, flawed men doing what they think was right in a world of ambiguity, was a high note of the piece.
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IMPORTANT IDEA :)

And Mo... once again.. great work. I hope these blogs are preserved for posterity. Someone should be given permission to move them to a fan site, they are some of the best BSG writing I have read on the web.

Ken D.
Topeka, KS
Lifelong BSG fan

Mo here: Thanks so much, Ken! It's not often that I come across a fan of the original series who is a fan of the reimagined one -- I know that some fans of the first series were less than pleased with the new version. Glad to read your perspective and thoughts, and thanks for the kind words!

By the way, all my BSG coverage going back to the start of the series is all collected here (and will be well into the future, I hope!) -- if you want to access older stuff, just click the Battlestar Galactica button on the right side of the page and check out the stories saved there.

I have to say that I am extremely impressed by Mr Hatch's passion for his character and my high esteem for him as a n excellent actor has gone up several notches.
I agree with him and even understand why his character, Zarek, murdered the Quorum. He did so because he saw that they were not willing to give him a chance to prove his leadership; and that , for whatever reason, they have taken side with the Adama/Roselyn faction. Zarek could not accept the compromise between what were to him the equivalent of Nazis to us.
The post WWII USA gave pardon and opened its doors to some Nazis who contributed to the Space Program and the atom bomb; people as respectively, Von Braun and Teller. no one today will tell you these people were Nazis, but they were; and both participated in virtually the same programs for the Nazi regime. Yet, many actually like them; in the same way as the humanized cylon are made sympahetic to us. But why should a Zarek trust them if he has an option not to? To him the Quorum were traitors to humanity; and as he mentions it, it was a coup, and bloodshed and purges are the necessary evils of revolution. Look at Stalin in 1936 and the purges he did; that almost crippled the Soviet Union when thay had to fight Nazi Germany.
This being said, I think that killing the Quorum was a mistake the character Zarek did as he did from a strategic point of view ; as it compromised his comncept of democracy and his legagy.

One thing you're forgetting: we DID essentially welcome those stormtroopers into our fold. Loads of Nazi scientists got brought to the United States after WW2 to help us fight the cold war against the Soviets.

First, I want to add my plaudits to Richard Hatch for keeping the flame alive all these years. I still hope that one day I'll see a revival of the original "Galactica" with Commander Apollo on the bridge leading the rag-tag fleet to that shining planet known as Earth. Jamie Bamber is Lee Adama, but Richard will always be Apollo.

That said, I agree with others who note that Richard failed to address why Zarek murdered the Quorum and many others.

Given his view of Zarek's character, I think I can speculate on how to reconcile his view with what others are saying.

I worked for politician here in our town who for years was the beacon of honesty and integrity. He stood up to the rich, the powerful, protecting the little guy.

And then he lost.

He was in the political wilderness for many years. He suffered further downtowns. He was viewed as a political pariah.

Then he found an issue he could exploit to ride back into power.

And when he got that power, he started compromising everything he stood for. He started laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. He relentlessly smeared and destroyed not only his perceived enemies, but also their families. He sold out, and now protects the interests of the weak and powerful. Forget getting anywhere with him unless you kick in to his campaign fund.

Almost all of his original circle have publicly renounced him, and are now associated with his rival. I think he sees in her what he once was, and deeply resents that his supporters are now with her.

Non-stop for a decade now, he has attempted to smear and destroy her. He's had us investigated by private investigators, looking for dirt. He's used his bully pulpit to smear innocents, costing some people their jobs.

I think what happened to him is what happened to Zarek. Both know they compromised their values, they lapsed their ideals. They hope that by silencing their critics, they won't have to look in the mirror in the morning and be reminded that they fell off the pedestal.

Zarek realized he fell, couldn't accept it, and started silencing those who would point out his fall.

But he well deserved the airlock. Shooting him was a waste of a perfectly good chair. :-)

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